Your Story Made Here: 80/20

Your Story Made Here: 80/20

By Melissa Long- 21Alive
By Ian Hoover- 21Alive

March 4, 2015 Updated Mar 4, 2015 at 10:12 AM EST

They call it "The industrial erector set". Legos and tinker toys for grown-ups. That's what 80/20, a Whitley County company makes.

Don Wood says: "We live in a society that everything is ready made. fast food. cars…and we still have these instincts that wanna come out. people wanna make stuff."

If you want to know what you can make with 80/20 "stuff" just take a look at their headquarters and plant off us 30. Almost everything in it is made with materials fabricated in the plant.

Don Wood says:"We designed everything in here. all the tables are made out of our product, all the cabinetry. The kitchen in here."

In fact, it's the customers who usually take a look at the 8000 items available at 80/20 and make their own product line. Like a local fire chief who decided his brand new 385 thousand dollar fire truck still didn't have everything he needed.

Don Wood says: "The fire chief is a gear head and he took one look and decided he needed bottle containments and he needed boot containment and slide-outs for all these other little ditses"

The company has come a long way since Don started it 25 years ago. He was a 58 year old man. Too old to start a new business, people told him. Well, the 350 thousand square foot facility and 425 employees would beg to differ.

Ruth Bellis says: "We don't have too many grouchy people. they wouldn't last long."

The plant is filled with all the parts for anything you could possibly want to make. Don provides stacks of flip books showing off all the products made with 80/20 "stuff"

There are also portable units that are sent across the country to show potential customers the wonders of their industrial erector set.

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